Hi, everyone! My name is Rob or Nero, I'm a sexologist living in Madrid, Spain and I'm starting a short survey to investigate a subject I feel very strongly about. This questionnaire aims to collect information about the experiences and identity of cis transfeminine men, defined as men who, although they identify with the male gender, do not want a penis or wish to have a vulva. It covers topics such as early influences, self-perception, medical and psychological support, and social impact, with the goal of better understanding and advocating for the needs of this unique group.

If anyone would be interested in participating, please, check out the link below.

Thanks a lot in advance!

https://forms.gle/8F3ufyEk2o9o8Bqj7

I've been looking for a good place to start reading and learning about queer theory in general. I'm a white GNC lesbian, and I've pretty much just read Stone Butch Blues (which was phenomenal). Reading some of the posts on this sub makes my brain hurt and I don't understand a lot of the discussions.

Books I own:

Feminism Meets Queer Theory (collection of essays)

The Straight Mind by Monique Wittig

Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lewis

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

Are these are good places to start? What will be easier for me to delve into? Or should I start somewhere else?

These books are also white authors, what are good POC to read?

I have an assignment for class where I have to choose one or two songs to base my case study on. I normally focus on womens rights or feminism in these types of assignments, but this time I want to focus on a more queer or gendered, or even just a more intersectional point of view. The thing I want help with is discovering artists, music or music videos in which I can explore this. It is a new way of doing academia for me, so I thought I would hop on here and just ask.

Hello, I'm starting a project of writing a children's picture book (high prob. middle grade) about transgender self discovery and the inner processes of that and I'm trying to avoid many cliches, for one the pink/blue dichotomy or "Tommy was bullied for being effeminate but wore a dress and everyone loved it and accepted them" because I think those are a disservice to trans narratives in the present however, I'm scared of tackling that self-identification from a very easy-to-digest neo-lib stand point (very Born This Way-esque) and I want to push it further but I feel like I need to have more solid arguments to construct my narration and I just want to ask for ideas, suggestions and references. Love ya, thanks!!

This is going take a minute to formulate, so bear with me. Late 20th century queer politics [edit: in the US] had two reasons for coming into being. A) the death of labor-socialism by the 1970's meant a search for new revolutionary subjects, and B) the later HIV/AIDS crisis. These new revolutionary subjects were to be understood as the oppressed waiting in the wings for a revolutionary coalitional politics. The first one degraded into Democratic Party representation and limited, contingent legislative reform in the US, the second became an ongoing global tragedy which only in the last decade met some success thru PrEP. This, alongside with the limited legislative success of same-sex marriage counts as a kind of partial fulfillment of the queer liberation movement's historic demands. Its success was limited, because same-sex marriage legislation has weakened in recent years. And since access to PrEP is mediated by an over-complex neoliberal health care industry composed of state-private partnerships meant to emphasize competition, it means that you are subject to healthcare that can evaporate in an instant if conditions change even slightly. Not everyone gets to have PrEP. The system fails rural people, Black and Latino people, people with or without health insurance, unhoused people and so on.

However, that partial success meant that queer liberation has had trouble reconstituting itself as a movement, not least because there is no global left movement for socialism to undergird its demands in the wake of recent reactionary reforms. In the place of such a left it led to Democratic Party representation thru their protection racket, where vulnerable groups are offered protection and rights but this protection/rights is contingent and weaponized for votes. Like you could interpret Dem politics as using queer and trans people as props to bait conservatives into targeting hate crimes at queer people, so that queer people vote more for Dems even though the party fails to offer consistent protection and rights. As well as crafting weak legislations which can come undone rather easily, further substantiating this unfortunate dependence on the protection racket.

So now queer liberation has tried to reinstatiate itself thru disability rights, which makes sense because the HIV/AIDS health care crisis was one of its primary raison d'etres. But since disability rights is subject to the same Democratic Party weaponized contingencies, it means that queer and disability politics goes into niches further removed from concrete politics. It's followed much of the same tack as other political concerns, in the way that in place of specific demands it just poses questions of "Who am I?

So all that to say I'm looking for queer historians who are trying to understand queer politics' success and failures as they relate to broader material/social conditions in the late 20th century​/early 21st century. Edit: while this post is largely addressing US conditions, I'd be interested in hearing how late 20th century queer history has played out globally.

EDIT: I overstated that part about questions of "who am I." Political questions are organically a part of material/social conditions in the modern era, arising out of real concrete problems. I think I'm struggling to say something like, because of the way the 20th century played out, mass politics is blocked from dealing with concrete problems directly. So that becomes reflected both in academia as well as state representational politics. It's not specific to queer or disabled political factions, it's much more general than that.

I am very new to queer theory although i have identified as a lesbian for a few years and overall consider myself educated on LGBTQ+ topics. I used to think queer was just a term to describe your gender/sexuality, but am now realizing it may be much deeper than that. I am greatly interested in learning more and if anyone can explain it to me i would really appreciate it. Thanks so much! :)

EDIT: I am not asking for myself, as I am not cishet, just asking as a general hypothetical to learn more!

i'm looking for anything about the over policing of butch women/dykes and about butch rage !! anything related is super helpful !!!

From here:

Human beings are biologically hardwired to be repulsed by other people, or something pretending to be a person, if they seem “off” for whatever reason.

Contrary to popular belief, beauty standards are not completely subjective. While there are unrealistic beauty standards pushed by the mass media, the left goes in the opposite direction by trying to (fruitlessly) eliminate beauty standards altogether.

The reason being? The idea that you cannot judge a book by its cover is both cliche, and somewhat inaccurate. The cover can reveal some important information about the contents. And that simple fact of life INFURIATES them.

The only thing you need to do to look reasonably good is to take care of yourself and not go out of your way to look provocative. All you need to do is to look physically healthy, wear clothing that is in good repair and isn’t tacky, and behave like a well-adjusted individual. Sounds easy enough for most people. It’s not difficult to practice basic hygiene and tidy your hair up. It’s not difficult to dress up in something non-objectionable that normies dress up in (and if you absolutely MUST find an occasion when dressing up in something flamboyant is appropriate, by all means, do so, there’s a time and a place for everything). It’s not difficult to go outside and go for a walk to burn some calories off, or not consume more calories than what is needed. A failure to do any of these things indicates laziness, a lack of self-restraint, narcissism/self-centeredness, or worst case scenario, mental illness. And thus we judge them to be “ugly.”

And yes, while you’d think it would be easy for most people, it’s apparently difficult for the average leftist, since they act like these standards are somehow “oppressive.” It’s so difficult for most leftists, that they actually felt the need to give (poorly thought out) instructions on how to dress while attending Matt Walsh’s speaking event in order to blend in.

Yes, apparently having shitty fashion sense is intrinsic to being queer, and anything that would require you to not dress like a shithead is oppressive.

Even though, you know, that kind of crap is self-evident to normal people. How to blend in and not look like a fucking lunatic. So how does this relate to crossdressing?

Crossdressing in of itself doesn’t even make all that much sense, when you realize that such clothing is literally tailor-made to fit the different body shapes of men and women, which FURTHER drills in the point of how wrong it is.

There might be some men who take interest in things that would be seen as “girly,” or tomboys, or women who take interest in things seen as “masculine.” But that by itself isn’t enough to visually erase any distinction between male or female. Even they still wear clothing intended for their sex.

A male, with clearly masculine features, wearing clothing not intended for him. Or vice versa. The amount of dissonance involved is enough to set off alarm bells in your head.

We are already biologically predisposed to be repulsed by any attempt made to blur (or outright eliminate) the differences between male and female, to the point where even putting on clothing intended for the opposite sex will trigger that fear/disgust response. And contrary to what leftists will tell you, there’s a damned good reason for that.

Nothing good can come from willfully ignoring the differences between men and women.

For instance, dating, romance, sexuality. Most people, like it or not, will much rather date someone who looks reasonably healthy for their sex.

Androgyny, at best, indicates poor physical health and/or infertility. At worst, it indicates an attempt at deception.

This is especially true within the “trap” subculture, where the goal is to pass as a female as much as possible, usually without the use of surgery or HRT. This is especially in regard to trying to “trap” straight men or lesbian women. Even if the people who practice such a lifestyle don’t actually go that far, the implication is every bit as horrifying as you think it is. It’s horrifying because the LGBTQ community doesn’t see anything wrong with rape by deception. They already believe that being a sex pest is intrinsic to being LGBTQ, and so they will call you a “homophobe” or “transphobe” if you call them out on such behavior.

Edit:

Such people also forfeit the right to complain about the “trans panic defense,” because rapists don’t have the right to complain when their would-be-victim fights back. And plus they could have EASILY avoided their well-deserved beating simply by telling the truth right off the bat, BEFORE anything went too far, because if they had done so, the absolute worst their partner would have done would be to say, “No thanks,” and walk away. Seriously, statistically speaking, troons are less likely to be murdered than either biological men or women, so they shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

And in the vast majority of cases crossdressers aren’t even trying to make people laugh, they’re trying to provoke ANY reaction out of people. Like the two gay teenagers who were intentionally being loud and vulgar in public so that they could provoke a negative response out of someone and get a dopamine rush out of ruining their life on social media.

Looking at the "controversy" of games having LGBTQ content I keep coming across things like this:

Looking at how people fought back against EA's microtransactions in Battlefront II, you could hit them right in the brand. Parents, normies, and other people just wanting a good time free of politics thought they could trust Nintendo to deliver just that. But like Disney now, they are letting the tail wag the dog and have damaged their brand. Nintendo let these localizers pull a Bud Light. Let's hope Nintendo sees they shouldn't take sides in the culture war and certainly not attack their core audience.

We've had wins in Helldivers 2 and Steller Blade , I say let's add one more.

We want fun, localizers want The Message™️.

Now ignoring how nobody cared in the end, and how telling it is that he sees it as a "message" like it's a dog whistle..

They always do that and justify it as "heterosexuality is the norm" like it isn't "political".

This is clearly q fallacy but I can't remember what it is.

Do any of you know?

From here

You seem to be missing the point of why people are acting like this. You immideatly jump to the conclusion that people like the person who followed Jessica Rush as a psychopath, but never take the their reasoning for acting like this. Normal people act like this because of disonance caused this trans fad. You can no longer evaluate a person by their appearance and in that way you are creating public dissonance among people who don't interact with trans people on a daily basis. When you rob a person out of one of his senses you create a place for uncertainty and that leads in an uneasy in any non-connected to the culture person. Imagine having a skin head with swastica tatoos and visable bullet wounds on his marks walk next. You would imideatly react to what you are visually presented by backing of or not making eye contact, no matter if the person with tattoos is recovering gang member or thug out to express him self violently. Now imagine that you as a person see something off, like a man in a dress entering the changing room of girls swim team. You cannot stop him since you can no longer place that person as female , male , Adult or child by your standard. You cannot say to this man that this a woman changing room, because he can claim to be a Child and Women only because he does not feel in the body of an adult man.

These women you given have given as a example don't suffer from discrimination, but suffer from a fad which told them they are free to be what ever they are without judgement of people which is childish at best. You can act as a man, you can act as what you feel, but that does not allow you to twist the perception of the people around you. Actually it makes you look more untrustworthy because you have made such a large effor to lie to them about what you are, because you want to present your self as what you Feel you are not taking in point that might be unattainable or even offensive(example: If you tattoo a swastica on your face).

You as a person cannot change how the world perceives you.

IF you are not attractive nobody should be forced to be attracted to you.

If you have decide to dress your self as a hobo, it will be idiotic to expect people to like after you lied to them about your self with the way you made an effort to twist your presentation to them.

We are human. The first communication with another person we do is the senses of sight and smell and even touch. So if you make the huge effort to cause mental dissonance into a person through you appearance and behavior it will be arrogant to expect normal reaction to people who have not been exposed to this mental dissonance( a man wearing a bikini without the effort to look at least a bit femenen, a woman who has forgone all hyginic treatments so to look more manly., ect ,ect) with normality.

When you are alone you are free to do what ever you wish, but in a community you have to build bonds with people and adjust to the community culture. If you come out as a outlier and forcefully demand people to accept you, even thought you reject the community culture you will create a noticible ressentment towards your self because you decided that you above them, you are more them and have no common culture with them.

In University you have the Woke culture defending you from society, but that is like a cult member being accepted in the cult, but when he present his cult person to expect the same acceptence in society akin to the one he recieved in the cult.

With your wishes to reject feminity you are rejecting a part of your self. To be feminine is not like a piece cloth you can drop. To be masculine is not cut a piece of you thinking now you are man. You can lie to society, that is an a individual choice, but when that behavior becomes absurd to the visial reality you can only beg or demand that society endulge in your fad or mental disorder . And then You are just endulging the fad or even worse a lesser mentle dissorder creating an idealogical cult. As a person living in a ex-communist country and had been living with a person who had a mental disorder(My mother had schizophrenia) I warn you againts elduging any of the two leads to dark places where the west find it self where people cannot trust each other because they forced into a life where they are forced to subject them self to the idealogy forced by the loud minority.

Hey everyone, So recently I've been struggling to find a way to...discover more about myself. Everything I've researched when I type the question I have seems like something very different than what I'm experiencing.

I guess this can be a little nsfw but

Is there a word for someone who gets horny but doesn't care about sex? I'm a cis male and have always had boyfriends and I'm very attracted to men. I think the male body is just so hot, and I've always found myself falling for guys quick, but when it comes to having an actual need to have sex, it's like, I don't really care at all. I'd really rather just watch porn and masturbate and then be disgusted by the sight of a penis until I'm horny again 😂 I love to cuddle and be non-sexually intimate but only in relationships and outside of relationships if I'm hooking up I want it to be as far from intimate as possible.

HOWEVER, I've exclusively been in some pretty abusive long term relationships in the past- 3 back to back to be exact- and when I am in a relationship I'm really committed and kinda put my own existence on hold so I can care for my partner- yes it's childhood trauma. I KNOW 😂- And after my last breakup in 2018, I felt so completely exhausted and drained of all of my energy and life force, that I just feel like I do not have the capacity to enter into ANOTHER relationship, especially bc they've all turned out so horribly. The way I look at partners has completely shifted after my last boyfriend.

The point I'm making is, Do you think there's actually a category that I fit into feeling the way I initially described, or do you think I'm just damaged too much from the abusive relationships I've been in in the past?

I'm 32 now and I'm so tired. I just need to make some progress somewhere and idk if I'm just traumatized from men or if other people really do feel the same as me where I love to sexually pleasure myself but have no need for intercourse in that way with someone else. What am I? This can't just be....regular gay nonsense 😭

Hi, I'm conducting research at Monash University on how personality and occupational status can impact desirability in LGBT relationships. Much of the research conducted on partner preferences and its association with evolution have focused on heterosexual relationships. We're trying to change that! Specifically, we're looking at bisexual individuals - a population unfortunately often overlooked by researchers.

If you're over 18 and part of the LGBT+ community, we would love to have you participate in our study.

This survey takes only 5-10 minutes, is completely anonymous and you have the opportunity to enter into a draw to win one of four $50 gift cards.

Access the survey here: https://monash.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eeOL5UzSOYiwIYe

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at npra0006@student.monash.edu

Thank you in advance !

Study approved by MUHREC: 44125

Ethics approval document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LCZkXEr0dozYjiLPlkdhxtWDxvg4-eD3/view?usp=sharing

Greetings! I’m Vaishnavi, a postgraduate student of English from India, and I need to work on a research project between September and November as part of my curriculum. My project focuses on how fanfiction helps normalise queer identities, for which I want to interview a small group of anonymous fanfic readers and writers. The interview would have a set of yes/no/unsure questions and some requiring short answers via a Google Form. If you’re a fanfic reader or writer who is interested in participating, please do fill out the interview (Google Form): https://forms.gle/LQLfXgbA2WKwj7ms8

The data would be used only for this project, for which each participant would be referred to by numbers (author/reader 1…) and no personal information would be collected beyond the email ID, age, gender, sexual orientation, and country of origin. Fandom no bar. While this would be unpaid participation, I’d really appreciate any interested respondents as, being a fanfic reader myself, I’m very interested in how fanfics actually help readers beyond being entertaining as an extension of fandom lore. Looking forward to your responses. Thank you in advance!!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10fWDI3ZNBMb2RRcFWSSoLRE6q-oG3LSTg8wlK67ewGY/edit?chromeless=1#response=ACYDBNgldlZPGZrot9tkukuRPCkT8j1RuHHtcSgCZd_8ZjJA6Be_wOsaC7ccCx5tUQ.
Hey This is for the purpose of an independent research project being done to study the impact of Hindi cinema on the people of the queer community. The sample of this research consists of people above the age of 25 years who come under the broad purview of the term queer and who watch hindi films. Except the personal details, the questionnaire consists of subjective questions. All the personal details of the responder will be kept strictly confidential. All the responses are going to be used for academic purposes only. If you can share this with the right people it would be really great. 😊

Greetings! I’m a postgraduate student of English from India, and I need to work on a research project between September and November as part of my curriculum. My project focuses on how fanfiction helps normalise queer identities, for which I want to interview a small group of anonymous fanfic readers and writers. The interview would have 2 parts - a set of yes/no/unsure questions via a Google Form, and a follow-up interview on Google Meet (an email would be sent to plan the same). If you’re a fanfic reader or writer who is interested in participating, please do fill out the first interview (Google Form): https://forms.gle/6xZNh5JQTMopDAag9 Also ensure to add your email ID to be contacted for the second interview. The data would be used only for this project, for which each participant would be referred to by numbers (author/reader 1…) and no personal information would be collected beyond the email ID, age, gender, sexual orientation, and country of origin. Fandom no bar. While this would be unpaid participation, I’d really appreciate any interested respondents as, being a fanfic reader myself, I’m very interested in how fanfics actually help readers beyond being entertaining as an extension of fandom lore. Looking forward to your responses. Thank you in advance!!

ETA: the form has a great amount of responses, is now closed for review. To address the concerns about the name and email ID - They were to help easily contact respondents for further details on their short answers if needed. However, I understand the skepticism - sorry for the alarm! Thank you to everyone that participated! And a big thank you to those who gave feedback and helped clarify some terms. I shall definitely keep that in mind for any studies further on and while drafting this project report. Thank you once again!

Hi there! Has anyone a recommendation for a good read about grief and queerness? I want to inquiry into the topic and need some good starting points....

You know, all that "penis is just a clitoris that testosterone gave a bunch of erections to in puberty" stuff. I don't mind if the book is targeted to trans or intersex audiences or not particularly to either, I just want to learn all I can (as current as possible!) about the facts that jut against the binary view. Actually, one trans-specific thing I'd like to read in that level of detail is what biological systems are kicked on by HRT. I would definitely prefer something conversational, but if I can only find the level of detail I'm hoping for in something academic I'll bite the bullet.

In our podcast this week, we were discussing the final section of Judith Butler's book, Gender Trouble. During the talk a question came up regarding whether Butler's project is essentially revolutionary, in it's deconstruction of gender discourse down to the grammatical level of subject/object - or if the project has more to do with building upon the continuity of human change (building on rather than destroying).

My take is that it is ultimately revolutionary in that it proposes a radical deconstruction of all understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality - positing societal taboos as generative of them.

My co-host and guest had some thoughts and disagreements on the matter though.

What do you all think?

For a little context - here is a passage from the end of the book:

The deconstruction of identity is not the deconstruction of politics; rather, it establishes as political the very terms through which identity is articulated. This kind of critique brings into question the foundationalist frame in which feminism as an identity politics has been articulated. The internal paradox of this foundationalism is that it presumes, fixes, and constrains the very “subjects” that it hopes to rep- resent and liberate. The task here is not to celebrate each and every new possibility qua possibility, but to redescribe those possibilities that already exist, but which exist within cultural domains designated as culturally unintelligible and impossible. If identities were no longer fixed as the premises of a political syllogism, and politics no longer understood as a set of practices derived from the alleged interests that belong to a set of ready-made subjects, a new configuration of politics would surely emerge from the ruins of the old. Cultural configurations of sex and gender might then proliferate or, rather, their present proliferation might then become articulable within the discourses that establish intelligible cultural life, confounding the very binarism of sex, and exposing its fundamental unnaturalness. What other local strategies for engaging the “unnatural” might lead to the denaturalization of gender as such?

If you're interested, here are links to the full episode:
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pdamx-26-3-consensual-categorization-w-mr-tee/id1691736489?i=1000666069040
Youtube - https://youtu.be/2sZmbo0xsOs?si=MljVKTM8yjHRrE2w
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/episode/33WlTmatuJtpZ43vmDNLcK?si=bb7fefd742ed4f61

(Note: I am aware that this is promotional, but I do encourage engagement with the topic over just listening to the podcast.)

I realize this question was asked in a philosophy subreddit a few years back, but curious to hear this subreddit’s take.

I think this is one of the major arguments many on the right have against queer theory that has unfortunately included all LGBT people in its scope (although someone being lgbt doesn’t mean they subscribe to or even are knowledgeable about queer theory). I have a few friends who are pretty “into” queer theory, though, and if anything they’re even more critical of age gap relationships than the average person.

Is there some missing context in the signing of this petition, or is it one of those cases where the provenance of these authors’ works to the field makes the signing of this petition (and any arguments regarding the agency of minors to consent to relationships with adults) a small uncomfortable/irrelevant detail?

Just finished a second episode of my podcast where we are discussing Judith Butler's Gender Trouble.

If I am understanding the argumentation around the 'taboo on incest,' it is something like:
The incest taboo is the primary regulator of gender identity as the taboo creates both a prohibition and sanction of heterosexuality. Following the simultaneous prohibition and sanction of heterosexuality, homosexuality emerges as a desire to be repressed.

As we are in the realm of critical theory, I would assume that this line of argumentation has some kind of political function. While I understand that a radical skepticism towards all gender/sexuality narratives is part of this, it seems to me to be placing the locus of freedom on incest itself - almost suggesting that if the incest taboo were lifted, then gender and sexuality would be somehow freed of their meanings.

What do you think?

Links to episode, if you're interested:
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pdamx-26-2-taboo-talk/id1691736489?i=1000665394488

Youtube - https://youtu.be/7stAr1o7mSo?si=U45Gzqquzj7g8sm5

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/episode/68xfn19o1q8kgNeTvvwnJu?si=0930400ec1374956

(NOTE: I am aware that this is promotional, but I would appreciate actual discussion around the topic).